Blue Dog Bar & Grill opened in October 2014 in the former Mulletville space on Matlacha. The restaurant takes its name from Blue, a black Labrador that belonged to owner John Lynch. The News-Press file photo

Sam's Chowder, made from Gulf grouper and local blue crabs, is a frequent special at Blue Dog Bar & Grill. The recipe comes from server Sam Kelly, a longtime Pine Island native and cook. Annabelle Tometich/The News-Press

Twice a week John Lynch makes the drive from his Cape Coral fire station to the base of the Matanzas Pass Bridge on Fort Myers Beach.

He goes for shrimp. Lots and lots of shrimp.

"Probably 400 pounds a week, at least," Lynch said.

He drives his locally harvested bounty to Matlacha, to an umbrella-shaded, canal-front table that serves as cleaning station for Blue Dog Bar & Grill, the restaurant Lynch and lifelong friend/chef Jesse Tincher opened Oct. 28 in the former Mulletville space on Pine Island Road.

"We clean all the shrimp, all our seafood right here," Tincher said as a pair of brown pelicans swam closer to see if it was mealtime. "We want fresh and we want local."

It's a philosophy people seem to appreciate. At 2:30 Friday afternoon Blue Dog was packed. Canadian snowbirds sweated it out on the restaurant's simple back patio — a pair of picnic tables, more or less — as locals and sunburned tourists mingled inside at the L-shaped bar topped in maps of Pine Island.

In the kitchen head cook Mary Cummings turned out tacos made with those local shrimp and an equally local mango salsa, and bowls of chowder brimming with Gulf grouper and Pine Island clams.

Blue Dog sources much of its produce from farms on Pine Island. Its blue crabs hail from the island, as well. The bar's 18 beer taps pour crafts from Fort Myers Brewing Co., Old Soul and Punta Gorda's Fat Point.

"It's all local," Tincher said. "We're changing the palate of the island."

And they're doing so with local hands on deck. Cummings has cooked in and around Pine Island for more than 25 years. Lynch, himself a 19-year Matlacha resident, hired servers such as Sam Kelly, a lifelong area cook and former owner of the old Kelly's Seafood in Bokeelia.

That chowder and many of Blue Dog's dishes are made using Kelly's recipes.

Local mullet appears fried with grits for breakfast, smoked in dip as a starter, and blackened with lemon-caper sauce come dinner. Steaks are hand-cut in house. Cracked conch is fried in panko breadcrumbs and served with Asian chili sauce.

Tincher and Lynch went to high school in Miami together, continuing on to Florida State University where they worked at a joint called The Phyrst shucking oysters and slinging beers. Tincher spent his life in hospitality, cooking in big-name chains and, most recently, at the Captain's Tavern, a critically acclaimed fish house in Miami.

When Lynch, a Lieutenant with the Cape Coral Fire Department, found the Blue Dog space, his first phone call was to his old friend.

"We get to do what we like here," Lynch smiled. "That's the fun part of owning a restaurant with your best friend."